Crazed computer retailer owner

[Asharp]

Ok here's the story, I paid a visit to Kaylen computers (the local computer retailer in my area) yesterday and was looking at some parts for the upcoming upgrades which I am planning to do. Now I usually shop around and go to many different stores like the Futureshop and Best Buy which are a short drive away and downtown Ottawa (capital of Canada) has many stores not to mention I buy online sometimes but this time I decided to go to this kaylens computers. Now I have done business with them before but never paid for any labour or maintenance just bought some parts and like most gamers and i'm sure most of you here at GH i built my own rig and do all the BIOS and XP install myself, have been doing that for years like many of you. Now I saw the ASUS P4P800SE mobo and said i was interested and was going to purchase ASAP and was looking at a new videocard either a retail 9800 pro or a powercolor 9600 pro 256mb ddr model.

Anyways thats not important right now the fact is for the first time I inquired about their labour charges and maintenance fees and the one question I asked was when you guys take the new mobo and install the processor I'll be providing and the other parts and once you install the new vid card and i take the comp home will my windows install stay the same and the data on my HD remain intact. Now the employee told me Chris the owner whom I have done business with before would call me back.

The following occured three hours ago:

Chris calls me up and he says "you got a question to ask me"
and i explain to him that if I was to have him put the comp together and setup the bios and put my hard drives in which have all my data and the win xp install when i got home would it boot up fine and would i loose no info.

He replied by saying that since the chipsets are soo different from the mobo i want from my existing one that Xp would have to be redone and I would lose all my info soo I said ok. But I added soo when i turn it on I will see a blue screen right and from there i would have to install XP and he said right and I said but i can't just put the Cd in like that and he said no and I said ooookkkk soo how do I install Xp and he said well for $120 and the $70 for labour I will install Xp for you but you have to provide Xp. I immediately thought to myself WTF!?. Anyways for a few mins it kept going on and I was telling him it can't be the only way and then he started getting very mad and yelling at me and I told him but people upgrade all the time and don't always loose their data and if they do they are able to do it themselves and don't need to go to an "expert" which he kept calling himself and he said look you will never be able to do it yourself and I am an expert and am one of the most knowledgeable people around that you will find in computers and I don't care about other people or the online community or any forum of anysort online which is full of dumbasses who will tell you differently. i own my own store and am better than all of them. WOW i though to myself and thought to myself "who do you think you are buddy". Anyways we both hung up and left things on bad terms but who cares we don't know each other. SOOO the reason for this help topic is that I have decided he is a pompus arrogant bastard and that he is worng and I trust you good forum members at Gh more than him and am not going to pay close to $200 for his install. So basically I need you guys help in doing my new rig.

my current computer which sucks but has gotten me this far:

intel celeron 1.7ghz
gigabyte GA-8SIMLP SiS 650GX chipset socket 478 CPU
768 mb DDR ram PC2700 266mhz
40gb western digital HD 7200rpm
120gb " "
audigy 2 OEM
sony 16x DVD-ROM
LG 52x24x52x CDRW
MSi Geforce 4 mx440

future comp:
same case with blue neon and 300watts psu
intel P4 2.0 GHz 400mhz FSb (which i will be OCing)
1 Gb ddr ram PC2700 266
same HDs except another 80gb maxtor
same Soundcard and drives
9800 pro or 9600 pro 256 mb version or something along those lines
firewire PCI card providing three additional firewire 800 ports

I would put more into the comp but this setup i only need to last six months. Reason for lack of money is I just put away $1000 for one of those new DVD-R video cameras whcih i need for my career/job and put $600 for a new digital camera.

anyways i will get the parts I need but I need you guys to tell me how to do this install. I will put the rig together and do the BIOS and if i need any help well its all explained in the manual that comes with mobo but once it setup and i power it for first time what do i do from there and is there anyway that I cannot loose the data on the hard drives. That stupid jerk of an owner says its soo hard to do and let him do it but he just wants my money something tells me this is an easy task and like the rigs i've done before all i do is put comp together run bios and from bios I should be able to setup Xp like the way all comps work but he says NO well F*ck him I would rather ask you guys. Plz help, thanks in advance.

sorry for lengthy post

[embracedeath]

The dvd camcorders are nice, but too much money. Plus you can only record 30 minutes on the dvds. Now with the computer issue, You will have to reinstall Windows XP. Everytime you start XP it tells Microsoft your computer specs, If there really off it will not start up. I had a problem When I built a new computer and used my XP disc, I had to call Microsoft and explain to them I upgraded before I could log onto my machine.

[Ar.Pi]

omg that computer dude it totally want ur money, what an ass. WTF u will lose ur Data , of course u wont , u'll just have to reinstall the windows (usually retailers take something about 100$ to put a copy on ur pc). i got HD that moved from 3 totally different systems already, i just got 2 partitions - data and windows , when i reinstall windows i even dont worry about it, i also would recommend the same thing for u so u wont have to worry about losing ur data if u use F disk or something...

gl with the new system

p.s.

call that guy and tell him to FO

[interman]

if you want to be safe, install winxp/2k on a secondary hdd, then connect the main hdd (with the broken winxp) and move over your data. when that's done format the hdd with the broken winxp and reinstall it. then swap hdds and do a proper install of winxp, and finally move over your data from your secondary hdd.

good luck

What you will find out when you do a first boot is that Windows XP will crash and report an 'initialisation fault' with a certain aspect of the system, usually the CPU and harddrive controllers.

Put your XP in and do a repair job on it. You might lose your personal registry, but all your apps and personal data will still be on there.

[*DoInThIs4FuN*]

Originally posted by interman@Jun 9 2004, 06:43 AM
if you want to be safe, install winxp/2k on a secondary hdd, then connect the main hdd (with the broken winxp) and move over your data. when that's done format the hdd with the broken winxp and reinstall it. then swap hdds and do a proper install of winxp, and finally move over your data from your secondary hdd.

good luck

OMG interdude, just what I was about 2 write...